Kingston public works boss says more money needed for large brown trash totes

KINGSTON >> More money is needed in the effort to supply 96-gallon brown trash containers to everyone in the city and make trash collection more efficient, according to the public works superintendent.

Michael Schupp said he’ll ask the Common Council to authorize borrowing the needed money as part of the 2015 budget process, which usually starts in October.

The department already has obtained and distributed about 2,000 of the brown containers, which look like the tall blue containers for recyclables that have been distributed citywide. The money for 500 of the initial 2,000 came from a state grant, Schupp said; the rest were paid for with $76,700 borrowed by the city.

The brown containers, like the blue ones, make collection easier because they can be picked up with the mechanical arms on the city’s three new garbage/recycling trucks, allowing for crews of two people per truck instead of three.

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“The single-stream recycling effort [allowing all types of recyclables to be placed together in the blue bins] was completed on target in 2013, and we are now beginning the rollout of refuse totes,” Kingston Mayor Shayne Gallo has said in his State of the City address earlier this year. “Our hope is to complete this effort by 2016. We are merely just beginning to realize the positive impact that these cost saving measures are having on the city’s sanitation budget.”

Gallo has said the single-stream recycling program will save the city a substantial amount of money in trash-disposal fees paid to the Ulster County Resource Recovery Agency.

Schupp has said the brown containers have been distributed in the Roosevelt Park neighborhood, along Hurley Avenue and Millers Lane, on West Chestnut Street and on Delaware Avenue.

The three collection trucks with the mechanical arms cost the city $280,000 each. Schupp said having two people on each truck instead of three allows the extra employee to do other work the department. He also said fewer trips to the disposal site in the town of Ulster are needed because the new trucks are larger than the old ones and can hold more.

A few years ago, the Department of Public Work lost 14 employees to layoffs. Schupp said the new waste-collection system has eased the burden of those cuts on the department.

About the Author

Paul Kirby is a reporter for the Freeman, covering Kingston politics. He has been at the Freeman since August 1996. Reach the author at pkirby@freemanonline.com
or follow Paul on Twitter: @PaulatFreeman.